She smiled slowly, deliberately the kind of smile that didn't reach her lips so much as it bloomed in her eyes like poison flowering in gold. The kind of smile that promised endings. "Soon," she said, voice laced with silk and malice, "you shall stand beside me willingly. You shall see the beauty in ruin."
The wind rose like it had heard her and taken offense. It caught the hem of her cloak, lifting it into a sudden flare, so that for one long moment, she resembled some forgotten god-beast shaking off dust and centuries. She didn't walk Azael never simply walked. She moved like the air deferred to her, like the world was only a stage and she the final act. Heat warped the space around her, curling it into bruised mirages. The scent of blood floated thick in the air metallic, inevitable.
Where she passed, the land retreated. Grass yellowed. Soil cracked. Even shadows hesitated, trailing behind her with reluctant loyalty, as though unsure if they would survive the next moment.
